Hum

What is this dark hum among the roses?The bees have gone simple, sipping,that's all. What did you expect? Sophistication?They're small creatures and they arefilling their bodies with sweetness, how could they notmoan in happiness? The littleworker bee lives, I have read, about three weeks.Is that long? Long enough, I suppose, to understandthat life is a blessing. I have found them — haven't you? —stopped in the very cups of the flowers, their wingsa little tattered — so much flying about, to the hive,then out into the world, then back, and perhaps dancing,should the task be to be a scout-sweet, dancing bee.I think there isn't anything in this world I don'tadmire. If there is, I don't know what it is. Ihaven't met it yet. Nor expect to. The bee is small,and since I wear glasses, so I can see the traffic andread books, I have totake them off and bend close to study andunderstand what is happening. It's not hard, it's in factas instructive as anything I have ever studied. Plus, too,it's love almost too fierce to endure, the beenuzzling like that into the blouseof the rose. And the fragrance, and the honey, and of coursethe sun, the purely pure sun, shining, all the while, overall of us.

Read by Nigel Lott